The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 5 Hidden Treasures

For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from other Houston bars and restaurants.

A live music venue-cum-artist's compound that also serves great fish tacos and does pour-overs of Ethiopian coffees is the last thing you'd expect to find in the crumbling Tlaquepaque Market in the East End. But that only further enhances the sense that you've found something truly special and unique at this brightly hued restaurant. In the summers, the patio is the perfect spot to watch a Texas sunset, especially with a cool mochachino in hand.

Cafe TH is easy to pass on Pease if you're not looking for it -- especially at night, when the strip center looks like a prison block on lockdown -- but the instant you step inside Minh Nguyen's Vietnamese restaurant, it feels like coming home. Nguyen remembers every face, name and order at Cafe TH, and even names dishes after his more memorable customers. Go on a Thursday or Friday night (the only nights Cafe TH is open) for a three-course prix-fixe meal and a Vietnamese speakeasy experience that's further enhanced by the BYOB policy.

I am so sorry those scallops & grits are covered in nasty burned butter. That's not brown butter by any stretch of the imagination. Ruin the scallops if you must must, but abusing grits like that is uncalled for.

Big fan of Jonathan's. Jonathan and Jessica(his daughter) really take care of their guests and the food is excellent. BYOB nature of the place is a huge bonus. Live just across the freeway and go there often. Burger is to die for.

Yes I believe I actually read about that here. Something about someone sending their steak back for being the wrong temp. I have eaten there and the food is good. I dont mind a little crazy in my chefs.